This study aimed at investigating learners&rsquo / attitudes towards English language and English speaking societies. The study also explored the historical and sociopolitical factors that might have influenced learners&rsquo / attitudes. In order to collect data, a language attitude questionnaire was designed adapting several questionnaires which were prepared with the goal of collecting information about learners&rsquo / attitudinal predispositions towards language and language learning in various countries around the world. The study sampled 219 students studying at the preparatory schools of two state and three private universities in Ankara. In addition to the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire, qualitative data were obtained from the open ended items in the questionnaire and the interview sessions. Interview sessions were conducted at the sampled universities, and 10 students (5 male 5 female) were asked their opinions about their reasons to learn English, their opinions regarding the current status of English in Turkey and their feelings towards English and towards their native language. After the data collection procedure, inferences were made according to the data obtained from the questionnaire and interviews so as to make quantitative and qualitative analysis. While the quantitative findings of the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics via SPSS 11.0 (Statistical Package of Social Sciences), qualitative data were analyzed through the content analysis. According to the factor analysis of the responses in the pilot and the actual study, the parallel statements were categorized into a factor. Consequently, five factors which ultimately formed five &lsquo / themes&rsquo / were obtained. The research findings were interpreted with reference to these five themes-native language loyalty, instrumental orientation, cultural interest, appreciation of intercultural contact and attitudes towards British and American people respectively. According to the research findings, Turkish learners of English at sampled universities have favorable attitudes towards the English language due to their interest in the cultural products of the English speaking societies and the instrumental value of English as a global language. On the other hand, they have developed ambivalent attitudes towards the target societies due to the intercultural contact with these societies throughout Turkish history, current sociopolitical concerns regarding the British and American state policies and finally their perceptions regarding their native language and culture. Alternative solutions at individual and institutional levels have been proposed in order to change negative attitudes into favorable ones, and prevent the generalization of stereotypes and attitudes into individual levels. In order to achieve the acquisition of favorable attitudes at individual level, intercultural contact should be promoted so that learners will have personal experiences and personal contacts rather than relying on indirect sources such as press and cultural products which might generate biased assumptions.

Nahuatl is one of the indigenous languages in Mexico that is at risk of falling out of use. The research in the last years have showed that this occurs due to the low amount of Nahuatl speakers and the social stigma and discrimination towards the indigenous peoples, among other factors.The studies of language attitudes are relevant when making attempts to revitalize a language. As Mexico City authorities have considered to implement a revitalization project, we wanted to approach the real situation of Nahuatl in that city. Our purpose was to measure the attitudes of young people towards this language. By using a direct method –a questionnaire- we asked two groups of students if they agreed or disagreed with some items about Nahuatl and its speakers. One group had contact with Nahuatl speakers and but not the other one. We compared the results and they showed that the students who have contact with Nahuatl have more positive attitudes than those who don’t have any contact with it. This study also revealed that the reason why the first group showed positive attitudes was solidarity with the Nahuatl speakers. However, the both groups considered that speaking or learning Nahuatl cannot contribute to raise their status in the Mexican society.

The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the research literature that has been done previously on the subject of motivation and motivational strategies in the EFL classroom. Furthermore, the gathered material will be compared and analyzed. The research questions are based on how motivation and motivational strategies have been defined by previous researchers and what the pedagogical implications are for the Swedish context related to the previous research. The material behind the study is eight articles that all talk about one or more of the four motivational strategies, intrinsic, extrinsic, instrumental and integrative. The majority of the studies argue that the intrinsic motivational strategy is the most valuable, however they all agree that it takes more than one motivational strategy and other factors to build student motivation. These articles have been analyzed with a content analysis and thereafter the articles have been categorized.  The result of this study shows that the majority of the analyzed material mentions or recommends the intrinsic motivational strategy, how the motivation from within where a person does something because they simply want to do it is the most powerful sort of motivation. However, some of the previous researchers indicate that there are more factors involved in a student’s motivation then just one strategy, for example the relationship between a teacher and a student or a combination of different motivational strategies. The research and researchers are consistent with the fact that you need motivation and motivational strategies in the EFL classroom to increase learning.

This research inquires into whether the motivation of students learning English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at the upper-intermediate level improves when thematic instruction is employed in the classroom. This is the first time that a theme-based integrated skills approach was implemented at the Department of Basic English (DBE), METU at the intermediate and upper-intermediate levels. With the outcome of the needs analysis carried out by the administration, it was realized that students at the preparatory school needed to use integrated skills as reflected in &lsquo / real life&rsquo / . Moreover, thematic instruction was seen to be a requisite in the new curriculum since content is a key motivating principle. Hence, since one of the main concerns was the motivation of students attending courses at the preparatory school, there was a need to examine whether using this mode of instruction at the upper-intermediate level was able to ameliorate student motivation. For this research, firstly a pilot study and then qualitative analysis using in-depth interviews developed on the basis of the pilot study was employed. Therefore, using a triangulation of different kinds of data on related questions, interviews were carried out with 14 students on three separate occasions at the end of each span from the upper-intermediate group, two administrators and six upper-intermediate instructors. From the point of view of the students it appeared that generally content encouraged learning and improved English proficiency if the themes/topics were found to be of interest. However, the degree of impact of the themes and topics on student motivation largely depended on whether the student was intrinsically motivated or not. If the student was intrinsically motivated, content had a nominal affect on motivating them. The study showed that if the themes are linear and have a parochial focus on topics, too much time is spent on a theme, a redundancy of lexical items are taught, unnecessary details are included, and difficult and academic language used, these led to student demotivation in respect of content. Thus, indicating a greater variety of content was needed.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore what underlying factors play into students´ motivation towards participating in verbal communication in the classroom. The first aim is to find out what the students themselves express and believe motivates them to learn spoken English, and the second aim is to find out what the students feel hinders them from engaging in verbal communication in the classroom. This qualitative study is based on questionnaires followed by group interviews with students who were selected as a result of the survey. The study was carried out at an upper secondary school in southern Sweden in the courses English A and B. The results show that the students are motivated both by the relevance of English for their future studies and professions as well as the will to identify with English speaking cultures, thus showing a combination of instrumental and integrative motivation. The students also express elements such as speaking anxiety and group size to be a hindrance in their language learning. In addition, several points were made regarding how the teacher might help the students participate more in oral communication through for example arranging smaller groups, only allowing English and having more speaking exercises in class.